As of: February 28, 2024, 3:38 p.m
By: Giorgia Grimaldi
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The shortage of teachers in Germany is acute.
Qualified immigration from abroad could help, but there are several problems.
“If you want to become a primary school teacher in Germany, you have to earn 180 ECTS points in seven semesters in Thuringia.
In Berlin 300 ECTS points in ten semesters.
“So you can’t talk about uniform teacher training,” says Mark Rackles.
He is the author of the study “The country needs new teachers,” which he will present on February 28th together with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
It is time to make serious changes, because the acute shortage of teachers is a “Herculean task” that must always be taken into account.
Training teachers should not be a “university privilege”.
Challenges of the current system include the excessive demands on disciplines, especially in mathematics, chemistry and physics.
In addition, the most scientific standards are often pursued instead of practical content with “teaching relevance”.
Many students drop out of their training because of this.
Others decide against becoming a teacher after completing their traineeship after completing their studies because they had different ideas about school operations, explains Rackles.
According to the study, another problem in German teacher training is the need to be trained in two disciplines.
This makes Germany very different from most other countries that train single-subject teachers.
The question of who is allowed to train teachers is also causing discussion.
So far this has been a “university privilege”, but Rackles recommends opening it up to universities.
The shortage of teachers in Germany is a “Herculean task”.
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BuzzFeed News Germany
.
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“There is a lack of 68,000 trained teachers in Germany”
Helmut Holter, Thuringian Minister for Education, Youth and Sport says: “There is a lack of 68,000 trained teachers in Germany”.
At the same time, the school has “changed”.
A heterogeneity of the student body is becoming apparent, for example due to increased immigration from abroad.
But the teaching staff has also changed.
Teachers who have been trained through bachelor's and master's degrees as well as those with state examinations work in schools.
There are also career changers.
And what about skilled workers from abroad?
The study says “we need a welcoming culture for every teacher”.
This is about the further qualification of lateral and lateral entrants, not about skilled workers from abroad.
The Union for Education and Science (GEW) examined what career entry looks like for this group in Germany in a study in 2021.
The conclusion: Germany is wasting unused potential here.
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Recognition of foreign qualifications takes too long
In order to change that, Germany must remove hurdles, according to the GEW.
Only a few migrant teachers (20 percent) manage to actually work in the teaching profession in Germany.
This is mainly due to the recognition of foreign qualifications and professional experience.
The process takes an average of nine months.
If the qualifications are not sufficient - for example if teachers are trained in only one subject - they have to make up for them with so-called compensatory measures.
Only in Bremen, Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein is recognition expressly possible for just one teaching subject.
In these federal states, the chances of recognition for teachers with only one subject area are significantly better.
Others, on the other hand, have to catch up on entire course content.
That costs time and money.
And apparently scares many people away.
Of the 7,365 applicants between 2016 and 2018, only 678 took part in a qualification measure.
The majority of migrant teachers gave up the teaching profession in Germany.
Elina Stock, speaker at the GEW, would therefore like to see more training opportunities “on the job” in order to integrate skilled workers into the job market as quickly as possible.
More on the topic: “German arrogance” – Where there is still a problem with skilled immigration
Education Minister on work integration: “We have structures that are too rigid”
Education Minister Holter also has a similar opinion.
He told
BuzzFeed News Germany
, a portal from
Ippen.Media
: “Bringing colleagues from abroad into the German system is a matter close to my heart.
But it is a difficult act.” The biggest hurdle is the German language.
“We require foreign teachers to have a C2 German level,” the highest level known in the European Framework of Reference for Languages and equivalent to native language skills.
“We want to lower it to C1 and to B2 for foreign language teachers,” explains Holter.
But there was also a lack of teachers in subjects such as music and art.
“Does it really need a C1 or C2 level?” he asks.
He is in favor of hiring foreign teachers and giving them one or two years to complete their qualifications.
However, there are currently laws standing in the way of this.
“We have to become more flexible, our structures are too rigid,” concludes Holter.
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